US Political Thread

[M. A. Dockter]

Let this be the ONLY political thread in the Gen forum to be used any longer. I was hoping, along with many others, that they would be over today, but it looks like it'll take up to another 2 weeks for the State of Florida to recount votes and answer all questions of voting procedures in their state.

For those of you that don't know the US, Florida is that Peninsula in the southeast, that points south to Cuba.

This is not only for my sanity, but for the sanity of all other people that don't care anymore. I'm sorry for any troubles people will have. I will no close all recent political threads. If you have any questions or concerns with this, please e-mail me at mdockter@pcmech.com

To start this thread out...I've heard the re-count in FL could take up to 2 weeks, but as short as 2 more hours...what's the deal with that?

[M. A. Dockter]

Also...WI (my home state) and IA are very close, and if Gore wins FL, bush might call for re-counts in those two states.

[jessho]

I don't know about other states, but Texas has some counties that have write-in ballots. They take longer to tabulate, but two weeks seems a little too long.

[Karel]

1 thread = 1 good idea

edited as per GLC's request, see below

[Edited by Karel on 11-08-2000 at 10:29 AM]

[PeteS99]

I don't see why it wasnt counted properly the FIRST time! They could recount every state and who knows what would happen..

[Karel]

Difference in Iowa : 0.403 %
Difference in Wisconsin : 0.242 %
(according to CNN site)

Do they also have a state law that imposes a recount?

[Byte 2.0]

There were places in Tn that the Polls opened with out the book of Names, I saw on TV I forgot which City, but A-F weren't able to vote.

What is thi mess in FL, They said that Gore and Buncann's names where misplace and votes for Gore went to Buncann..

Yes I know I misspelled his name, but they say that is about 3,500 votes, enought to change things around.

Plus do you think the electoral voting system needs to be re-thought. Most popular=the loser... That an't right....

Plus for those of you that don't know much about Tennessee, We consider it the 3 states of Tennesse, East, middle, and West...

plus all the news media in East Tennessee has been and is still pro-Bush. East Tennessee seemed to me to be pro Bush, while middle and west tennessee seemed more Gore.

Now, I am left with these questions, What promises did Bush make to Us again.

Personally, I can't see how Bush(R) was able to Take Tennessee after our Governor has just spend the last 2 years trying to Raise Taxes, while most of our Reps were saying no.

Also Tennessee has been messed up in other ways, such as I have seen people driving around with PRO Bush, Pro Gore sticker on there cars...What Gives there.?

Also with Coal Unions in both TN and KY, Gore saying he would protect unions.

Heck, Tennessee is a rural state for the most part, and they announced the Bush won Tennessee with in minutes of the polls closing, I know they is no way they had enough votes counted to declare that...

I didn't do an Exit poll, did you?

[Edited by byte on 11-08-2000 at 10:19 AM]

[glc]

The reason that the recount may take 2 weeks is because Florida absentee balloting law allows for ballots to be counted that are *postmarked* up till poll closing time, and may be actually received up to 10 days later. For our overseas military residents, the mail can actually take that long to reach here.

pete: I have no doubt that they were reasonably accurately counted the first time, but Florida law mandates a recount when it's this close.

dok: WI and IA still would not be enough in that scenario - Bush would have to win OR fair and square too, and OR is going to be a while to determine due to mailin ballots.

Let's keep this thread open - and I personally would like to see that people keep it to procedural issues such as have been addressed so far and NOT "Bush vs. Gore". I have had enough of the politicking and its OVER except for the final count.

[Karel]

glc,

I edited my earlier post to cut the joke out. Satisfied?

[Byte 2.0]

Just Think, I can see the T-Shirts now,


Front
Leave it up to Florida

Back
What were we thinking?

Or
Back
What were we Smoking?

[glc]

Karel: I was not pointing at your joke at all! Sorry if you saw it that way but it was unintentional. I do thank you for being considerate.

[glc]

Latest word from Florida - a recount of all votes "in hand" must be completed by close of business tomorrow by the respective county election supervisors. This does not include absentee ballots postmarked by yesterday that are not yet received - they have a 10 day grace period to arrive.

I personally can't foresee a final decision for 10 days - it's THAT close.

[drisley]

I must say, I am suprised it is this close. I thought Bush had it by 5 to 10. But, no.

Florida election law mandates the recount. Bush still has the lead, but, everyone must admit, whoever wins this is going to have one humbling victory. The next Prez needs to be able to work both sides of the aisle, because this will be a divided government no matter who is in the White House.

On another note, I went through a crapload of trouble yesterday to vote, so if it comes down to the wire like this, my vote for Bush better decide this. =)

[PeteS99]

My take on this: we need more options. Obviously most everyone felt the need to fall into one of two parties. And neither one of those parties is a perfect fit for anyone's beliefs. I don't think there should be 50 parties to complement everyone's wants; but I think there ought to be at least a couple more (somehow everyone needs to get over this obligation to pick the 2 popular parties). Picture this: every baseball game next season is the world series. You only have two teams to watch all year. Because those are the Majors, people dont think to look at the minor leagues to promote them. I think we need more than one world series. Sports, and everything else, become much more enjoyable with the options.

[Byte 2.0]

I had to take off an hour at work to vote. since the polls opened at 9 a.m. and I normally start work at 9 a.m. an hour away.

Early voting wasn't an option for me either since that would have required taking even more time off from work, becuase I would have had to drive 40 miles in the wrong direction to my county seat.

[mairving]

Man this is democracy at it's finest.

Several things can be gathered from all of this. One is that this country is really divided. Looking at the map of the states, it looks like the civil war all over again. I really don't see either candidate bringing us together. The other thing that is interesting is the Senate. It is now by all accounts split 50/50. If Bush wins, Cheney is the tie breaker. If Gore wins, the GOP will have a 51/49 advantage. You never can tell how things are going to turn out. My in-laws are from New Mexico. They could not get out to vote because of snow. I think the state would have gone to Bush otherwise. So many things like that could have made Florida a non-factor.

[M. A. Dockter]

If we did have more than 2 political parties, then the 51% of the Electoral College needed to win as stated in the constitution would be hard to get when the whole nation is divided up into 3 and 4 parts. I think a little constitutional re-writing (amendments) is needed to take into account political parties.

Also, if we went by popular vote to elect the president, I feel that states would loose their rights in the election process. I favor the idea of a "one state, one vote" idea that the House uses when the election get's thrown into it.

[Xayd]

The idea of the electoral college was to avoid that stuff Doc. I for one don't want a system like what Parliamentary countries have ended up with, when the party that gets 15% versus the 10% of the vote that the other 30498508 parties get runs the whole country.

I am torn on this situation, though. Both arguments have merit. On the one hand Gore won an outright majority, but on the other hand Bush won about 30 states. Both have a just claim.

I guess my final opinion is "I dunno".

Xayd

[troysvihl]

>>Do they also have a state law that imposes a recount?<<

I believe the Florida recount mandate is a state law, and I've heard that most other states have a similar law. It's some pretty obscure election law that rarely gets used, so I don't know the details.


The ironic thing is that most people believed that if it came down to one party getting the popular vote and another winning the electorate college, it would have been gore winning the electorate college and bush getting the popular vote. Of course after all the absentee ballots from military personal abroad comes in, Bush may get the popular vote anyway. I really don't know how many of those ballots are out or have been counted already.

[Edited by troysvihl on 11-08-2000 at 02:02 PM]

[Byte 2.0]

I guess if Bush gets FL, then this would be the first time the most popular(by vote) would lose. That isn't right no matter which one wins and loses....I agree, and I believe there will be amendment.



Please Answer this
How is it decided how many Electoral votes each state gets?
I think it has to do with the population of the state, however I am not sure, if it is done by population how often is it updated to reflet changes in the population?

I used to joke when I went up north the the Civil War wasn't over yet. That both sided, join to fight WWI and WW2, and that the fight just never started back, yet.

(I know in my joke that the years are bad off for that to even be close, but it was all in fun.)

[Edited by byte on 11-08-2000 at 02:13 PM]

[M. A. Dockter]

Don't be so hard on yourself just because we whipped your arses byte

Electorial votes of a state = # of Senators (2) + # of US Congressmen

[drisley]

I don't really support getting rid of the electoral college. It is a matter of how a republic works. This is not a democracy. Democracy, in its pure form, is a scary form of government. Whoever wins the College, they're the Prez, as it should be.

I would support, though, a multi-stage election, giving 3rd parties a legit chance. A one state=one vote system is inheritently stupid, because a state full of moose like Alaska would get an equal vote as California. Bad idea.

Let's watch the count. history shows the recount very rarely changes the vote, so if that holds up, Bush is Prez. It won't be over for awhile, though, with all these predictable claims of fraud and this stupid claim by the Gore campaign that people mistakenly voted for Buchanan. Heheh..

[jad1097]

Byte You are correct it was a pathetic display here in Tennessee. I live in middle Tn. And there was nothing but Bush signs and stickers everywhere.

[M. A. Dockter]

David:
If you think one vote per state is stupid, why is it then that the law of the land states that when the election is thrown into the house, the reps from each state make up their minds on who to vote for, and vote as a whole for the state...yeilding a one state = one vote process...

Why do we even have a senate then?!?

[PeteS99]

dok,

isnt the senate there to tack really strange, unrelated and often immoral addendums to what would normally be good bills, thus causing them to get vetoed?
~pete

[M. A. Dockter]

Pete...yeah, that's the Senate I'm taking about

[troysvihl]

The senate is there in order to give each state a stonger vote in governmental affairs. That way not just the most populous states get the say in how things are run.

drisley - I agree somewhat on both of your statements regarding democracy and a multi-tiered election.

A democracy in and of itself is nothing more than mob-rule. It's funny how politicians and other people always scream that we need to be more democratic are often the same people that scream bloody murder when an unfavorable reforendum gets passed. Take Washington state for instance. Both parties up there love to lace their speaches with terms of "democracy," "will of the people," ect. But only one election ago, a referendum passed that made it so that any further tax increases must be done by referendum. Effectively, the people neutered the politician's power to levey taxes. Both parties fought that referendum as much as they could. Not a peep out of democracy from them during the fight. I doubt the people of Washington will be seeing any more tax increases any time soon. (I'm unsure if it was successfully challenged in court or if it has been gutted in another way, but the basic idea is pretty good and it won easily if I remember correctly)

So for all the people that are b*tching and moaning about democracy being circumvented and that the constitution needs to be changed in order to eliminate the electoral college, why don't we institute a real change and require that all tax changes be voted on by the general public? I doubt the Federal budget would be 2 trillion a year for very long. (Can you say "budget cuts"? I knew you could.)

As far as the electoral college is concerned, the conflict between it and the popular vote has only happened 3 times (not counting this years potential). So I don't think that there would be any great danger in either eliminating it or keeping it. However, to eliminate it the constitution would have to be changed and I just think that we should not mess around with the constitution for such a small difference.

As far as the multi-tiered election, I also was in favor of that until about a week ago when it dawned on me that it would effectively kill any hope of a 3rd party shifting the platform of a major party. I'd always believed 3rd parties play a larger roll than most people believe, b/c in order to recapture votes, it forces one of the major 2 parties to change their views. (take the populast party early in this century. the Repubs had to dramatically change for them.) But if minor parties, like the Greens or the Reform, are strained out early by a multi-election process, they would have very little sway if they couldn't impact the final tier of an election. The major parties would have a diminished incentive to change. If the greens had been eliminated in an early election this fall, the Dems wouldn't have to change their platform at all to try to pander to them. (I mean, where else would they go if it was only the Repubs and Dems in the final election)

[Edited by troysvihl on 11-08-2000 at 03:12 PM]

[PeteS99]

Really OT.. what kind of PC do you think resides in the Oval Office? Does the Pres get a new one when he pleases?

Dok - at least what I base my on for Senate

[Edited by PeteS99 on 11-08-2000 at 03:18 PM]

[JetBlack69]

Originally posted by byte Please Answer this How is it decided how many Electoral votes each state gets? I think it has to do with the population of the state, however I am not sure, if it is done by population how often is it updated to reflet changes in the population?

Ok, my social studies teacher answered this to our class. In Minnesota, we have 10 Ele. Col. votes. We get one for each senetor (2) and for each rep. (8) The # of reps. is based on population. Ok, now we have 10 democrates and 10 republicans, if Bush wins the popular vote in MN, the 10 republicans vote in the E.C., if Gore wins, the 10 democrates vote. the number of E.C. votes we get is because the # of senetors is 2 for each state and there can only be 435 reps. The main reason for the E.C. is because most of the voters are uneducated, this is true because I don't even know my own reps and senators. Hope this helps. Sorry for the # of typos, I'm in a rush.

[Floppyman]

Well I'm actually surprised that it was so close in my homestate, IA. I figured they would go for Gore, and well according to the media Gore carried that state but only by small margin. Speaking of the media, I think it is a bad idea that they sit around all night and call the states to one canditate or the other, because I think it affects how people in the west will vote when they see the East's results since their polls close earlier. The dumb thing that happened last night was that the media was wrong, and gave Gore Florida earlier on, and later had to take it back. It looks Florida will be the deciding state. Thinking that I just heard this morning that they found another ballot box somewhere, this could take a while, but I've also heard that we might know by tomorrow night. If you want my opinion, I have a feeling Bush will stay on top in Florida as Republicans tend to do better on absentee ballots than Democrats. I'm 17 and can't vote yet, so this is just my 2 cents worth.